Saturday, July 10, 2010

confetti

august midwest melts in to the sun, the streetsa seascapeof the eyes of strangers, your bicycle wheelsone minutea careful descent into dusk

it was all a long time ago, todayits okay, we'll live until tomorrow, she says

your footsteps on the steps of the bus, aviator sunglassesseemingly hundreds of mexican restaurants and a barefoot man out therewashing the sidewalksthe space between me and their effortless swagger andall of us caught up in itholds the sweet ring of baba o'reilly

there's a chainsaw between me and polanddagger between me and london

world in an icecream conetwenty seven million miles and countingmy heart breaks to the rustling of your hair, and your dark handacross my pillowand the drunks out on lake streetoverflowing down 32nd, right beneath my windowsinging the saturday song

i wonder where everyone is right now

all of the suburbs are silent

i've got a friend in wisconsin! green fields all the way to chicago!umbrellas on the shores of lake michigan and sheep atthe side of the roads, little mexicodirt sky of el pasogonna save up some money and fly

all the stars like nerve endings, lighting at randommy empty cigarette lung hanging dangerously low to a coal black slit in theperfect oblivionand steel drums in my headand steel drums in my head

The Kill.

open

words i haven't seen

easy verses

cloudy nerves

platforms in memory

streets lined with perfect pitch

sidewalks like a

violin

and my empty marionette stance

woke up to an ashen world

filled the pockets with

leftover girls

leftover world

kept the candy where i could see it

kept the poison where i could feel it

and the tiny burning sun

blister in a blinding sky

dangles before ruby mouth

tastes like every day

keep the candy where i can see it

keep your heart where i can feel it

keep your head where i can kill it

leftover girls

and my empty marionette stance

wooden legs

hands held by wire

buildings like a

set of stairs

winding up the horizon

filling the skyline with

every shadow

just to taste the day

so you're mellow

i can see

hard to swallow

such a treat

i let it burn

such pleasant razorburn

and scrape

away the shallow coat

its nothing but the antidote

nothing if not in this dream

you can't erase a bruise

that stays black

today tomorrow was

yesterday

they offer me the same

uptown knows a face

and money too

pay for play, every day

offers me the same

accept that the catalyst

is in the women's hands

open

for business

open

for ingestion

always

for injection

its in the women's hands

palms smile invitingly

accept the excess runoff

until death do us part

and i knew it from the start

i would throw me away

into the women's open hands

providing runoff from the man

into palms outstretched

dissecting coils of time

giving me to mine

scratch the itch and peel away

pay for play every day

makes a sun shine

splits a sea

rips me in half

fantastic midnight found me in the

crease of your design

my paper fine skin is

chalk sliding down a bent sky

into the treacherous waters

of azul atlantic eyes

i fought the tide and found it to be

somewhat of a subtle hint

that fighting was a waste of time

can't fight the crease

of your design

so sick of spaces, its a drag

the way the arrows of desire

leave me full of exit wounds

white of the jagged moon

just piercing on through

and your design

like the scratch of blue fever

coldsweat and fire

frozen over

hurts like the heavens, it is

the red carpet, the only

acceleration

straight, no chaser

burning so good as it

goes right down

echoes and shadows

your design, and the

sultry violence

of the sky

my pupils wide like

black machines

in the fantastic midnight

static clings to my dreams

st. christopher

slick red velvet chair, lace veilguest list reads like a bibleI’d sell out just to please the crowdjust to be in stylejust kidding

club nights and alley dayssticks and stonesa most sufficient remedy

candy seems to think she had it alluntil one day she ran awayand went into submissionso now how am I supposed to pretendits okay, I’ve exhausted my resources

sugar please, make sense of thisthe skies are filled with dustI’m somewhere in between, above the earth

my sullen saint Christopheryou weren’t cut out for thisI remember the rain coming through your broken car windowthe way that you cradled my brittle framethere was so much more I had wanted to say

is guilt a reasonable result of pleasureor pleasure a source of pain

no use in denying the ascent to spaceso many smiles and sighsI have to remind myself, sometimesof every stretch of happinessthat brought me to this familiar plain

how many units got you to the tophow many brought you down

into the white of the wintery dusk

curling plumes, steam and smoke

feed the air with its musk

and the snow, brittle snow

falling desperately fast

pummeling the frozen earth, and

sending the dirt to its

maker

coating the deadened ground

beating it down

black heavens, suspended

in suspension, what suspense!

and the joy of the sting

and the crunch beneath my feet

never ceases to bleach

bleach the bitter, brazen, bold terrain

blot and

numb it out

sweet novacaine clouds crying

icy saline february tears

it was the language of the season

Feb. 14

the crease is right

caught in the fold

and every wrinkle like a sigh

the edges drawing near

translucent hands

paper fine skin

chalk sliding down a

bent and broken sky

all the clouds look fine tonight

every black space

each white star

both sides at once

its not enough

pulled my trigger

shot down the moon

restless sky is perfectly empty

chalk dust rains down

into the fold

mornings cut me a sliver of indifference

just so i can monopolize ignorance

the chill of wet air and the sun hanging low

over western soil and my

two feet planted firmly in the earth

the hours and minutes like a question

searching for seconds that hold the answer

suspecting the answer to be

somewhat like cancer and the

questions come down like rain

divine incisions

separating the folds in the

crease of the night

broken sky

two lights burn subtle

silver knife

the voracious arrow of mine

magnet pupil, slow spin and apple

slice through the skin and

carve about the spine

two hands

tendons stretch, the

sinews strain as my

weary fingers take the plunge and

slip between your own

your eyes

licked me clean to the bone

harsh ivory and marrow

the definitive structure

how the blue could cut through

every pretense

and time

and the distance

seemingly irrelevant

to the nature of my heart

can't write beautifully enough

to construct images of us

don't want to come across as another cliche

seems i can't pray to anything these days

lucky seven killed the cat

i'm quite sure its not so

lucky anymore

seven ate the nine

right here in bed i said

it happens all the time

seven says its getting bored

but making big plans so

rest assured

i traded seven in for a six

now its making me sick

should have been

faithful to the odds

3. sometimes all you need to remember is not to forget so those things so familiar won’t ever recede and the casual time won’t slip away except for the size of this its far too obscene to commit to the memory of it i am not the only one to simply decide not to lose we’re being accessible to the pull of possibility and a lift up, sometimes, exposing the seams to their otherwise manufactured appearance where has my childhood gone? hollywood, heroin. palm trees on the pacific coast endless road ocean tonight is the perfect oblivion.

Bang Banghenry hudson,you put a riddle through my vacant heartand empty head, george washington youfilled it upin the dirty snow before daylight savings timeI started to remember what New Jersey did for me

started to thaw

broke into an empty place, smashed out the windowsallowed all the winds to join mewatched the sun blaze its way west, watched the shadows lean crazilywent outside again and surfed a tilted sidewalkall the way to your front porchwhere I stood for a minute in awe of your tiny, fat hands

the skies were filled with a strawberry hue

and I was thinking about fifteen years ago when I would stay home from school

and how plastic and metal still turn me on

and piles of my little ponies, with theirneon hair, and gems in the stomachs of trolls, and my mother cookingmacaroni and cheese, and television staticthe Yankee game on the radio, in my bed in the dark

awful river full of tug boatsthe way we fooled that cop on the way to the bridgelistening to casettes we had bought at the salvation armyhow the twinkling lights bore holes through the night, and the traffic

We used to go for morning rides. I would wake up early and drive everyone down to the Newport Club for the 6:30 A.M. meeting. It would be just like my first day in California, driving down that hill to 32nd Street with the sun slowly climbing over an endless expanse of blue-green, palm trees towering out of the view of the car’s windows. When it was over, I would drive Kialas’ blue car all the way down the Pacific Coast Highway, lit by the newly risen sun. I’d turn the music up as loud as it could go and chain smoke menthol cigarettes. The bass rattled the entire vehicle. We would pack the car with laughter. It was a form of procrastination. No one wanted to go back to the Treatment Center for chores and morning meditation. The ocean would be to our left, and those oil refineries to the right. We would pass Main Street in Huntington and continue to where the land was flat and it seemed as if you were teetering on the edge of the water itself. Before we made it all the way to Long Beach, I would begrudgingly turn the car back around and make the reluctant drive back to Costa Mesa. For some reason, that stretch of highway always managed to invoke a certain sense of freedom. Maybe it was the wide open space. I loved to drive. I didn’t even have a license. I still don’t have one, now. The sky was always such a perfect blue, those mornings. On the way back, on the right side of the road, near the fire pits, parking lots lined with Volkswagen buses dotted the horizon, and scruffy surfer boys unloaded their surfboards and ran a finger through their hair, looking out into the waves.

My dad used to drive my brother and me down to the Jersey shore during the winter in the family’s minivan. We were young kids then. He loved to go down there when it was nearly deserted. We would either listen to the oldies on a New York City station or some dusty old classic rock cassette tapes that he had in the car. The Beach Boys were a favorite of mine. It was somewhat ironic to be listening to their sunny California surf music in the grey stillness of New Jersey winter. He would turn the music up, loud, and the three of us would sing along. Nearing Pt. Pleasant, the radio stations would fade to static and the tapes were all we had. I knew we were getting closer to the shore when a thin film of sand appeared on the sides of the road. I always wondered how it got there. The trees were different down there, too. They stood so tall and narrow along the side of the turnpike. All of the carnival rides would be abandoned, the parking lots nearly empty. The boardwalk itself never seemed to close though, and we would spend endless amounts of quarters on those claw machines that are so nearly impossible to win. The music there was like an endless circus soundtrack. My brother and I would jump up and down with joy after finally clasping a cheap stuffed animal with the machine’s metal fingers. You could never seem to win anything worthwhile, though, like those silver watches sitting haphazardly atop mounds of small, technicolor pebbles behind the glass. We would get some pizza and lemonade, probably some ice cream too, and walk up and down the wooden slats. The ocean was a cold, dim green, the sky concrete.

Prom weekend. We went to Seaside Heights, along with seemingly the entire rest of the world. I got really stoned and fell asleep on the beach. I ended up so sun burnt that it hurt to move. All of my friends were having a great time getting wasted, but my boyfriend and I couldn’t seem to stop fighting. I really wanted to go to White Castle, but I don’t think we ever ended up going. The only thing that I really remember other than that was smashing a bunch of cheerios on the hotel room floor and then trying to shove someone’s face in them. The Jersey Shore seems really dirty during the summer. All the girls are all greased up in their miniscule bikinis, with their melted makeup running down their faces. Hundreds of beach umbrellas dot the sand, and little kids run around in diapers. Shrill lifeguard whistles pierce the air, and obese, middle-aged couples balance precariously on their fold-up chairs, drinking cans of Miller Lite and reminiscing about the good old days. The seagulls scream as they swoop down to grab scraps of garbage and cigarette butts from the ground. One time I went down there with some friends and we buried this kid in the sand, and then stuck fries in his ass. Not literally his ass, but the sand above it. Those seagulls shamelessly flew right down and ate the fries while he was lying there on his stomach.

My first word was “stuck”. I mean, of course I said “Mom” and “Dad” and the typical baby drivel, but my first actual word was “stuck.” Our cat Tidbit had climbed on top of this wooden chest that we had in the dining room, and I followed her up there. My mother found me, sitting atop the chest, saying “stuck, stuck, stuck.” Spoken like a true alcoholic.